Hermione's Pity Party
by Madhatter1981
Summary: Why, in the Harry Potter books, did no one comment on the fact that Hermione doesn't actually know how to write a paper correctly. This story addresses that. Slight Hermione bashing, nothing too mean.


**Hermione's Extra Credit**

 **A/N** **:** Don't own, don't get any compensation from this, just for fun.

Minerva McGonnagall didn't know what to do, the mid-term student grades were about to come out and she knew that one of her favorite new Lions, Hermione Granger was going to be in for quite a shock. This was worse for Minerva due to the fact that she saw a lot of herself in the young witch; being a half-blood she knew something of the persecution that a non-pureblood faced being better at studies than their pureblooded contemporaries.

Minerva had just returned from a staff meeting in which the staff figured out how they were going to deal with testing the students for the coming midterm. Most of the students were coming along at a pace that would see them well into their upcoming spring finals, for those of her lions who wouldn't be worried with OWLs or NEWTs.

There were always a handful of first and second years, mostly muggle-born or raised that need help with their studies to get them acclimated to the way things were done in the wizarding world and Minerva had already scheduled a meeting with a few of her Prefects to discuss setting up a tutoring/study hall system when necessary; nothing too invasive, just a few meetings to let the first and second years know that there were upper classmates that were willing and able to help them if they had any problems with their time at Hogwarts. While this was normally the Prefects/Head Students responsibility Minerva found this study hall system worked better, if for no other reason than it spread the responsibility around more evenly than just relying on a couple of Prefect and letting the rest of the house fend for itself.

While this would work for most of the first and second years, Minerva found that a somewhat more personal touch was required for a few of the more "difficult" cases. One of them she was scheduled to meet in just a few minute as it was.

Minerva could be said to be disappointed with Miss Granger. The girl seemed to be so willing to learn how to perform magic when the Deputy Headmistress went to Hermione's house in a suburb of London. It was a great surprise to learn from her fellow teachers that Hermione was blatantly disregarding their instruction and writing reams more than the professors required. She had noticed the girl's trend in her class but figured that was it, to write as much as Hermione's professors were indicating suggested that the girl got little to no sleep at night. With Hermione being so young she needed at least seven to eight hours of sleep nightly in order for her magical core to develop properly.

McGonagall again looked at the paper in front of her that Filius had given her, alongside one from Pomona. Both pieces of parchment had been marked with a large "A", along side the mark on the charms essay was written the note "grade will not improve, and is in risk of going lower if assignments are not followed as instructed". Re-reading the papers Minerva rested her head in her hands and gave a weary sigh. It was at that moment that the door to her classroom opened up and the person she had requested to see stepped inside.

"Professor?" The subservient voice of Hermione Granger timidly called out to her head-of-house. Looking up Minerva McGonagall had to hold back a groan at how much Miss Granger looked like a Crup eager for its next treat. She had students like this, both wizard and muggle born and for the ones that were sorted into some other house than Ravenclaw it was very hard going for that student as the members of their house could be merciless towards what they felt to be a mis-sorted student.

"You asked to see me Professor?" Granger asked as she stepped in after her professor beckoned her to do so. Hermione made her way over to what was her desk when taking Transfiguration, center of the front of the seats in the classroom. When classes first started Hermione was all alone at that table, now she had Harry Potter and a rather begrudging Ron Weasley on either side of her in class. This seemed to be more of a hindrance that a help as Miss Granger and Mister Weasley were constantly arguing about things while Harry seemed to be caught in the middle more often than not.

"Miss Granger, do you know why I've asked you to meet me?" Professor McGonagall started her meeting with the young girl. Sighing as she watched Hermione shake her head in the negative to the question that was put forward to her, McGonagall realized that she would have to explain very carefully.

"You, seem to be, by all appearances a bright, precious child but even the best first appearances can be faulty." Seeing Miss Granger frowning McGonagall sighed and continued.

"Your professors have come to me with complaints that you are refusing their instructions, specifically on the matter of the length of the papers that they assign your classes to write." Seeing the shocked look on Miss Granger's face McGonagall felt some hope, it was quickly dashed as a stubborn look affixed itself to Hermione's face. Making sure that her wand was in reach, McGonagall explained to Hermione what the professor had decided to do about Miss Granger's term work.

"All of your professors, myself included, have decided to allow you to rewrite your assignments so that they fit the requested length and resubmit them for partial credit. We are of course available if you are having problems with this assignment. Alternatively if you decide not to rewrite and resubmit your assignments and continue with writing you assignments the way that you have I regret to inform you that you will be given an 'A' grade on them, assuming that your professor agrees with what you have written to begin with."

Sitting there listening to what she was being told had Hermione in a state of shock. There was so much information in the books that she read that when she was told to write a paper she always wrote more than the required amount. While her muggle teachers had tried to get her to write to a more manageable length in the beginning of the terms by the time the winter break came around they would give up; and let Hermione write what she wanted and give her full marks; otherwise the girl would whine and nag them unrelentingly. Gathering her wits about her, Hermione asked what she felt was the most important question to her mind.

"Professor what will my grades be on the papers that I turned in to my professors last week and is the assigned length at all flexible or do papers have to be set at the length we are told when the assignments are given?" Hermione asked, one more thought came to her mind causing her to blanch before she asked, "Will my parents be notified of the problems that I am having?"

McGonagall, upon hearing the fear in Miss Granger's questions, wondered about the young girl's home life; she had dealt before with students whose parents place unreasonable pressures on them to be the best, either scholastically or socially. Deciding to deal with her concerns about her students home life later McGonagall did a quick review over what she and the other professors had agreed on, well a least besides Severus who was of the opinion that Miss Granger should just be failed until she learned to 'stop wasting her professor's time'. Taking a breath to get her thoughts in order, Professor McGonagall faced Hermione and replied to the girl's frenetic questions.

"Miss Granger, to answer your questions, yes the length that the professor assigns is the required and expected length, we usually give roughly two weeks for incoming muggleborns to get uses to the fact that we expect the paper that they're assigned to be a certain length and any deviation from that will lead to grade/point deductions. We usually try to talk to the student beforehand about them turning in papers that are significantly over or under what we expect in terms of length/content, something that both professors Flitwick and Snape have assured me that they have attempted to do, but maintain that you brushed off their concern without even seeming to listen to what they were saying. This concerns me, twined with the fact that it seems you're having trouble finding common ground with most of your year mates suggests that you will be in for a long, lonely and difficult time here at Hogwarts." Professor McGonagall, realizing that she might have come on a bit strong earlier attempted to make her face softer as she addressed Hermione's last two questions.

"For now we have decided to hold off on contacting your parents, hoping that in catching the problem in time and talking to you about it we won't need to talk to your parents, with them being muggles we're not sure we'd be able to explain the problem to them in a manner that they'd understand." Hearing that her parents would not be contacted, Hermione let out a sigh, not hearing the slightly discriminatory reason that the professors decided not to contact them. Realizing that her professor was still speaking and she hadn't been paying attention Hermione's face flushed as she addressed McGonagall.

"Professor I'm sorry I wasn't paying attention, could your repeat that?" Hermione requested, flushing at having to admit to not giving any authority figure her complete attention when they were talking. McGonagall, paused in her speech, giving Hermione a searching look that had the young girl squirming before giving a sharp nod and starting again.

"I would suggest you pay attention to how Mr. Potter writes his assignments. While like with most muggle born or raised he initially had trouble writing with a quill," Hermione was temporarily brought out of her indignation at being told that another student might be better than herself to wince at the memory of her first attempts to write with a quill and ink bottle, she quickly focused back on the professor's speech, again feeling a sense of indignation that another student could be better than her at something, "Mr. Potter has made great strides in conforming his work to how we like it here at Hogwarts."

Standing up to signify the end of the meeting McGonagall had a few words before Hermione left her office.

"Miss Granger, please take what I have said today as an attempt to help a student that seems to have lost her way, nothing more. I am not trying to make you feel bad about your time here at Hogwarts, far from it; I am trying to help you have the most profitable experience you can while you are with us. I hope you take what I have said today to heart, and know that my door is always open." McGonagall sat down as she finished her speech and started to work on some papers that were on her desk. Seeing that her professor was through with her Hermione scurried out the door with tears in her eyes.

Making a stop in an unoccupied classroom, Hermione broke down and started to sob, what had she done to get a lecture like that? For all her life she'd expended all her efforts to get good grades and show her instructor that she fully understood the information she was required to learn when she was given an assignment. So she went over the assigned length a time or two, if her paper showed that she learned the information then it just went to show, the teachers set the length of the paper to small.

In Hermione's muggle teachers defense; they had tried to talk to the girl about her habit of filling her papers full of extraneous information, but with the number of students in their classes, coupled with the way that Hermione constantly and willfully disobeyed their instructions, they just threw their hands up and let her do what she wanted figuring that her teachers in the next grade would curtail the girl's habits. They didn't realize that, in their inability to get Hermione to understand, they were just compounding a problem that if left unchecked would leave the young girl with a good number of difficulties in her adult life with how she dealt with authority figures in general and her superiors in particular.

Coming out of her pity party, Hermione thought about what Professor McGonagall had said to her. The fact that it would appear that most of her other professors agreed with the Transfiguration professor caused Hermione to take a good long look at her actions scholastically. Looking at how she was treating her professor with a more objective eye, Hermione was horrified; the memory of a conversation she had with her parents floated to the surface; in it they (her parents) talk about how magical schooling may have different ways and means of getting lessons taught besides learning spells, incantation, and potions and that she was to keep an open mind, which she had obviously failed to do.

Feeling ashamed, Hermione made herself promise to try to conform to the way that was expected of her as a witch. Pleased with this new found attitude, Hermione made her way to the Great Hall in preparation for Dinner. Going over what Professor McGonagall had told her with her new mind set, Hermione made her mind up to try to help her fellow students while subtlety studying them to see what they did to get proper grades in class.

Sitting down at the Gryffindor table Hermione frowned as she noticed that The-Boy-Who-Lived was there already and seemed to be in a conversation with the oafish redhead she met while looking for TBWL, while helping Neville look for his toad, on the train to Hogwarts. Remembering that the redhead seemed to be having trouble in class, Hermione decided that she would offer to help him in their next class, Charms. Satisfied with her course of action, Hermione filled her plate with nutritious food that her parents would approve of and plotted how to be the best student at Hogwarts with the restrictions that were placed upon her by the misunderstanding staff. As she sat their Hermione began planning a letter to her parents about her Hogwarts experience so far to put the idea of hiring a tutor to get her up to speed in her missed muggle studies in the coming summer. Satisfied with her decision, Hermione pulled her Transfiguration book out of her bag and set to prepare for the paper she had to write for the upcoming class.

 **A/N 2** **:** Yes I realize that this isn't 'Quidditch' am making head way with rewriting it but still a long way from publishing, just something to get the juices flowing creatively, refresh the palette, as it were.

 **A/N 3** **:** Please review and tell me what you think. Thanx.


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